biker16

Now you're speaking in general terms? So people who live near the 79 street stations don't work in UC or downtown? Who are these "ton" of people. Why seperate residents from all visitors and workers to UC, Downtown and beyond. Just because someone may not disembark at 79 street, why should the station remain the only station on the eastside not to be rehabbed? Again, poor people have no voice. "They're poor, they don't need a nice station" blah, blah, blah Also the same could be made for East 105, which is the closest station to CCF. Why do people need a road to UC/CCF when the University Cedar station is being rehabed, East 105/Quincy is a short bus ride or walk to the Clinic. Instead of building a road thru "nowhere" fix up Quincy as there are residents and businesses on the north end of Quincy like Karamu. East 105 street can be fixed up and housing retail added and current bus service increased. BRT on E. 105/Woodhill I would embrace as it's a north/west route. Again, this road is a waste! What are you talking about? I never even mentioned the East 79th station. And I never said those people who live there don't work in UC! ?? I mentioned it. I suggested shutting it down and running buses (frequency depending on use) down the OC between the 55th and 105th rapid stations. What I did say is that telling people to take the red line makes no sense since it doesn't serve them. People who live in any of the cities to the south or the southwest don't have good access to the red line. People on here act as if the OC will only benefit those who live on the west side where the red line runs. That is not true. This has been said repeatedly, indeed the only people whose access to UC/CC is not improved are those to the north and east. Plus, I think some forget here is that people "can" do a lot of things they don't wish to, and will find alternatives to when they can. I do think the best future for this area is industrial, not residential. Provided something can be done about CERCLA. There is no proof that road will create any sizable investment along the corridor. There is simply the original university circle access project prettied up to appear more palatable to the community it runs through. There is a very effective campaign by the local foundation cartel to push this project, and one by one politicians have fallen in line with the mayor and the greater Cleveland chamber of commerce, AKA greater Cleveland partnership to move this project forward. Even Slavic village councilman who was against this at first h's fallen into line. It all smell very fishy to me. No one wants to piss either the mayor or the GCP off by opposing this. Any one wanting to stand against this project there is a Facebook group and soon a twitter We are hopping to organize and ask the same questions being asked here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/606909012674914/

Well said.

Honey I can use pictures to manipulate the situation. I agree 100% No dude, using pictures without any background information is very open to manipulation, how about attaching a map so we know where the pictures, and pictures rarely give the fullest soy of an area. Using them just reinforces your prejudice.

Haven't you heard about all those treasury bonds that the Fed keeps buying because we can't find enough buyers for all the debt we're trying to sell? That's because several countries are already gradually reducing their US debt holdings. Why do you think the Fed stopped reporting the M3 money supply figure several years ago? The unfortunate reality is that we are already Greece, we just haven't felt it yet because the US dollar is, but only for the time being, the world's reserve currency. That reserve status is growing more and more precarious and anyone who thinks that it will never change is delusional. Quantitative Easing, between 2008 and 2012 the Federal reserve has purchased trillion of dollars of US bonds. not because he market will not buy it, but because the Fed wants to create greater liquidity in the Economy. the sign people will not buy Treasury bonds is when the interest rates go up, because the interest Rates are the carrot used to buy US bonds. At 2.79% for a 10 year bond, Are much lower than the 4.97% for the same bonds in 2007. So how does this jive with the Sky is falling rhetoric being put forth in the media? Demand is higher than it was 5 years ago? Why is the fed printing money to buy bonds? because Stagflation is more of a concern than inflation. even with the dumping of dollars onto the market inflation has been negligible. As to our reserve Status, Britain hasn't paid a high price for it's loss of reserve Status but has been punished by their austerity which has killed Economic Growth there.

I agree that roads should not be subsidized either (and soon they will not be either, for the same reasons). Ditto defense contractors, etc., etc. We are a long way from anything even resembling a free market, but circumstances are about to force us to seriously rethink some of the ways we choose to waste foreigners' money. It simply is not going to be available to us much longer. You are delusional if think people will stop buying our debt, we are not Greece. nothing will change accept taxes will go up a bit and government services will be pulled back slightly, that's it. the system is not failing, contrary to what some people say this "crisis" is not imminent nor irreversible. The solution requires adjustment not Destruction of the status Quo.

The issue could be the designer of the streetcar, over-designed it, IE too many bells and whistles. this is waht happens When you have a engineering cartel. costs go up.

Minneapolis: Streetcar plans coming into focus http://finance-commerce.com/transit/2013/02/08/streetcar-plans-coming-into-focus/ Streetcar plans coming into focus Feb 8th, 2013 by Drew Kerr Planners in St. Paul and Minneapolis are getting a little better idea of what a rebuilt streetcar system could look like. In St. Paul, consultants working on a yearlong study of potential streetcar corridors have narrowed in on 16 possible streets which they believe offer the most promise. A map of those corridors is below; criteria used to come up with the list is explained in greater detail in this presentation that will be made at the St. Paul Transportation Committee on Monday. City officials hope to come up with cost and ridership estimates in the coming months, and to narrow in on one or two priority corridors by September. How all of this gets paid for remains to be determined. MOre info @ http://stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=4872

Wow, great news.

list of funded Streetcar systems. Downtown LA http://www.streetcar.la/ Opening in 2015 Tuscon, AZ http://www.tucsonstreetcar.com/ Under construction. opening late 2013 Kansas City, MO http://www.kcstreetcar.org/ Opening in summer 2015 Detroit, MI Detroit M1 Streetcar opening in 2015-2016 http://www.m-1rail.com/

Anaheim considers Disney-area streetcars

The Case for a Highway Teardown in Dallas by Angie Schmitt IH-345 in Dallas looks like a perfect candidate for a highway teardown. The 39-year-old, 1.4-mile elevated highway is nearing the end of its useful life, and it’s taking up valuable real estate just outside downtown. Dallas could be a richer city without IH-345, says Patrick Kennedy. Image: D Magazine Patrick Kennedy at Network blog Walkable Dallas Fort Worth estimates the teardown would cost as little as $60 million, while leading to $4 billion in new investment and a surge in property tax revenue. So why isn’t the Texas Department of Transportation investigating this alternative? Kennedy posed the question in a recent article for D Magazine. He certainly makes a good case. Here’s an excerpt he reprinted on his blog: Just as the system of freeways has shifted population outward, removing IH-345 from downtown would draw people into the city. It would reposition 245 acres so that it could be developed into walkable neighborhoods that could be home to 20,000 new downtown residents. Right now there is only $19 million in improvements on those 245 acres, and the city collects a mere $3 million per year in property tax revenue. By removing the highway, restitching the grid, and creating developable blocks, the city would see $4 billion in new investment within 15 years and generate $100 million a year in property tax revenue, based on our economic impact analysis. That’s enough in one year to implement the entire bike plan and build a new modern streetcar line from West End to Lower Greenville. Through land sales, TxDOT can generate some revenue to begin paying down its debt rather than adding to it.

Streetcars in Other Cities Washington DC and Tucson, AZ have streetcar projects that are shovel-ready, while funding has been approved for projects in Sacramento, Detroit, and Milwaukee. These are among the almost 50 streetcar projects pending in the United States today. The below chart shows additional streetcar systems in the preliminary and advanced planning stages:

awesome data, thank you for your hard work.

This program could be the most important step in the formation of national HSR 150mph+ standard, these new trains could usher in a new FRA standards for Passenger trains, develop and working national model for HSR procurement, and lower costs of follow on models. In essence becoming the template of HSR trainset for the USA for the next 30-40 years.

Politicians come and go, but these FRA rules have been around for almost a century. the thing is most people become fixated on people when the real changes in passenger the last 5 years has been reforming the procurement process of Amtrak, the standardization of rolling between Amtrak and other rail operators has allowed even regional railroads to save on procurement costs which make increases in service possible. When you look at the FRA rules, these rules were developed by the bureaucrats with very little influence from politicians. these rules on high speed trainsets are deal breakers they could double or triple the cost of each trainset over international rates, plus the maintenance rules for DMU or EMUs are overburdensome and ineffective in some cases at improving safety. Amtrak with acela, purchased a train that failed to meet the performance objectives, has maintenance issues, and comfort issues, fundamentally if advanced HSR is going to come to the USA, We have to change the way we write rules for passenger trains. If we don't we will never be able to afford the system we desire, and people like mica will have won.

Bloomberg: Amtrak Seeks Safety Changes to Allow U.S. Bullet Trains

Nice find.

but in practice the Fatality Rates of US passenger Trains is still much higher than every other industrialized country. the numbers just don't proof that addition buff strength saves lives. going by the data if they don't save lives why shouldn't change the standards. with 79mph plus speeds the law mandates intrusion detectors and full perimeter gates at every grade level crossing, and higher than 125mph all grade level crossing be removed. On the TGV there are sensors along the line to detect intrusion and if intrusion is detected the PTC causes the train to stop. Within minimum stopping distances of the rolling stock. The irony of FRA standard are that on train like Acela, each car has two bogies, not the more common shared bogie configuration in other countries, his has two effects increases weight and increase the likely hood of lateral buckling or jackknifing during collisions, which in turn creates the need for Anti jackknifing reinforcement for the train which increase weight far in excess of simply using a shared bogie. for some reason Americans think they have the market cornered on train safety, and are un yielding on getting those standards in line with countries with much better safety records. Yep. Good luck changing the situation. thank you. I'm am confident things will change.

but in practice the Fatality Rates of US passenger Trains is still much higher than every other industrialized country. the numbers just don't proof that addition buff strength saves lives. going by the data if they don't save lives why shouldn't change the standards. with 79mph plus speeds the law mandates intrusion detectors and full perimeter gates at every grade level crossing, and higher than 125mph all grade level crossing be removed. On the TGV there are sensors along the line to detect intrusion and if intrusion is detected the PTC causes the train to stop. Within minimum stopping distances of the rolling stock. The irony of FRA standard are that on train like Acela, each car has two bogies, not the more common shared bogie configuration in other countries, his has two effects increases weight and increase the likely hood of lateral buckling or jackknifing during collisions, which in turn creates the need for Anti jackknifing reinforcement for the train which increase weight far in excess of simply using a shared bogie. for some reason Americans think they have the market cornered on train safety, and are un yielding on getting those standards in line with countries with much better safety records.

That's a little different than a train, which doesn't need to get airborne. And when a plane goes from 500 mph to 0, there is no chance of anyone surviving no matter how strong you build the plane around them. So why bother trying to build a plane that will require a 10-mile runway and thousands of gallons of diesel fuel to get airborne? But you can address crashes by trains into each other (which can be reduced but never 100% prevented as ATS systems fail, brakes fail, other equipment fails). And then crazy things happen that require stronger trains, including on high-speed lines: > crashing into fixed objects (see the German ICE Eschede bridge crash in 1998, or when an ICE hit a large herd of sheep in a tunnel and derailed in 2008 -- yes sheep!); > natural disasters (like the Chinese high speed train in 2011 that was halted on a bridge by a lightning strike that shorted out the signal system and caused a second train to crash into it -- yes lightning!), or landslides which are destructive by themselves, but imagine if this happened on a double-track section when Amtrak's Empire Builder or Cascadia trains or one of Sounder's commuter trains rolled by this derailing freight train (the fun starts at 1:00).... So we build trains tough because there's always something strange and bizarre that can cause a train crash... As long as humans build and operate trains, there will be crashes, collisions and accidents. Humans are factories of the next unthinkable mistake. FRA Standards may have actually made both crashes ( china 2011, Germany 1998) Worse not better. first all passive used by FRa relyis on brut foce to protect passensger and Here is an interesting link on what FRA standards do. http://reasonrail.blogspot.com/2012/03/fra-standards-and-historical-crash.html http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/fra-stonewalling/ the idea is that mass of 700ton passenger train is better off than a 500 ton passenger train vs a 15,000 ton coal train. furthermore the idea that heavier can substitute for a well designed impact management system. the irony is that those lighter passenger train do a better jobs dissipating crash energy than the FRA standards mandate. here is what modern crash protection can do in a car. If FRA rules were so effective why doesn't the US have a better safety record, than China? becuase in comparative rail safety chins has one death per 55.3 billion passenger-km while the US has one death per 3.4 billion passenger-km. http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/comparative-rail-safety/ all this begs the question do these standards make Us safer, or simply waste money that could be better spent on things like PTC and better braking performance, not simply buff strength.

we cannot go on like this, this must chnage. We don't build airplanes to survive crashes into larger airplanes, we built systems to prevent the crashes from taking place. With PTC that can prevent crashes why must we continue to build trains for an era hat no longer exists. If this continues what will California do with the mix traffic of diesel Amtrak trains built to FRA Bluff standards, and the high-speed trains which should be off the shelf high speed trains to keep cost down and meet the acceleration requirements. we have had this conversation before the stadards are stupid, they don't increase safety, they just increase cost, a boon for train manufactures.

the NEC is Amtrak owned ROW, why would freight railroads have a say in what runs on it. It is time for the FRA to move into the 21st century and realize that the best way to survive a train collision is to avoid it. Lighter higher performance rolling stock means reduce stopping distances. If we redo the mistakes with Acela again, We risk being stuck with expensive and under performing rolling stock for another 20 years.

From what I've read the Acela II's are going to be developed pretty much concurrently with the next Tier of FRA crash standards. The goal of the new standards is to allow Amtrak to buy more of an off-the-shelf high speed train set without all the expensive structural modifications. exactly.

I bet you $100 they will be changed by then.

New trains that have to meet FRA collision standards on a PTC line are a waste of money, it is time to change the rules that require passenger trains to be much heavier than they need to be with one that realizes the effect of advance signal management systems , and the superior accident avoidance performance of lighter trains.